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Dietram A. Scheufele

@dietram.bsky.social
1.6K followers 256 following 208 posts

#scicomm, #healthcomm, #socialmedia, #openscience, #ai, #misinfo, and #polarization. linktr.ee/scheufele

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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
"[W]e call on the behavioral sciences to pause the use of LLMs as subjects [...] The use of synthetic samples misleads researchers, distorts the published record, and will impede the very science that these studies claim to advance." www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.... #AI #socialscience #scicomm
pnas.org
AI cannot replace human participants in behavioral research | PNAS
AI cannot replace human participants in behavioral research
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
"We contend that current AI tools call for attention to a new form of validity that we term synthetic validity." Good to see some philosophy of science beginning to infiltrate the completely non-self-reflective #AI craze in science ... www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
pnas.org
The “synthetic validity” problem in AI-generated science | PNAS
The “synthetic validity” problem in AI-generated science
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Rob Sica @robsica.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
🔪"The only people who experienced slight increases in negative emotions when exposed to the words were those who scored high on moral elitism and a need for recognition."
psypost.org
Is the phrase "master bedroom" actually harmful? A new psychology study says no
Many universities and businesses now use language guides to eliminate supposedly harmful words like "master bedroom." However, a new study finds these bans may be misguided, as exposure to such terms ...
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
#AI is rapidly transforming how we do science. Interesting new analyses by Mihai Codreanu and colleagues ... ai.google/static/docum... #scicomm #scicomm #highered
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
“[t]he infrastructure for large-scale scholarly record contamination is already in place. Ghost names additionally [...] are indexed without verification by Google Scholar and Semantic Scholar." #ai #scholarship #scipol #scicomm www.404media.co/the-ai-ghost...
404media.co
The AI ‘Ghosts’ Contaminating Academic Publishing
“The academic record is being quietly haunted” by researchers with names like Elena Vasquez and Marcus Chen.
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Today, almost six in 10 voters in Sachsen-Anhalt supported either the far-right AfD or one of the two successor parties to former East Germany's communist ruling party. www.tagesschau.de/inland/innen... #polarization #polcomm #democracy
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
"Our goal is to strengthen the link between empirical observation and theoretical explanation before the field loses touch with evolving, industry-controlled technological landscapes." New #openaccess piece led by @freiling.bsky.social ... #ai #algorithm #media academic.oup.com/anncom/advan...
academic.oup.com
Do algorithmic information environments mark the end of media effects research?
Abstract. Algorithmically curated information environments are beginning to challenge both long-standing notions of what media effects look like and our ab
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
“[LLM] use has increased rapidly and is associated with proposals that are less semantically distinctive from recently funded work. At NIH, such proposals are more likely to be funded and to yield more publications.” #AI #scipol #scicomm #trust www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....
pnas.org
The rise of large language models and the direction and impact of US federal research funding | PNAS
Federal research funding shapes the direction, diversity, and impact of the US scientific enterprise. Large language models (LLMs) are rapidly diff...
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
What can #scicomm and #civicscience capacity building look like in #AI-enabled and online learning communities? Help us develop evidence-based practice at a university that considers pushing boundaries part of their DNA. It’s a tight timeline with some flexibility. apply.interfolio.com/190729
apply.interfolio.com
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
While academics and policy makers still obsess over gain-of-function work, #AI is dialing things to 15 on a ten-point scale … www.nytimes.com/2026/08/06/s...
nytimes.com
This A.I. Just Created Viruses Not Found in Nature
Scientists trained artificial intelligence on libraries of DNA and then asked the model to create recipes for viral genomes. Sixteen of them were viable, yielding new viruses.
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
"Dass unser Austausch mit Wissen in Zukunft primär über #KI ablaufen wird, die von wenigen Firmen mit verschiedenen Biases kontrolliert wird, ist etwas, über das wir nicht genug nachdenken." Thanks to @wisskomm.de's Inga Dreyer for asking difficult and important questions ... #AI #scicomm #scipol
wissenschaftskommunikation.de
Warum es Public Engagement „mit Biss“ braucht
Seit mehr als 25 Jahren forscht Dietram A. Scheufele von der University of Wisconsin–Madison im Bereich Wissenschaftskommunikation. Im Interview reflektiert er über fundamentale Veränderungen, plädier...
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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
all of this
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
"AI is an accelerant, not the kindling. The kindling is publish or perish." I always learn something from reading Ivan Oransky's work. Borrowing great metaphors to structure my own thinking is an added bonus.
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
"What we should be communicating ... is the epistemic integrity of the scientific process itself: not the certainty of any given finding, but the reliability of how findings are produced, tested, and revised." Thanks to Rosa García-Verdugo for a great conversation, parts of which are linked below.
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
“… associations are generally stronger in editorial review than in peer review.” x.com/scienceadvan...
x.com
Science Advances (@ScienceAdvances) on X
A study of 110,303 manuscript submissions to two elite research journals has identified factors during the editorial and peer review stages that impact whether a paper is accepted for publication. htt...
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
"... fear of betrayal by the attention economy.” In analog terms, the revolution devours its children. share.google/FhauSZuFPqBu...
share.google
How Lizzo Became One of Pop Culture’s Great Flops
The singer is experiencing a new form of downward mobility—and she’s not alone.
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
"@arxiv.bsky.social will spin out from Cornell University, its home for the past 25 years, to become an independent nonprofit organization." blog.arxiv.org/2026/06/30/a...
blog.arxiv.org
arXiv’s next chapter: Updates on our spin out from Cornell University – arXiv blog
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Musa al-Gharbi @musaalgharbi.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
My latest co-authored article with @dietram.bsky.social, @farooquema.bsky.social, @almacristalhm.bsky.social + lots of folks I couldn't find on this platform explores how institutions and experts can productively respond to the populist challenge. Now live in @nature.com
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Morgridge Institute for Research @morgridgeinstitute.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
SCI Lab investigator Dietram Scheufele (@dietram.bsky.social) joins a group of science communication and policy experts in a new Nature comment (@nature.com). A timely piece in advance of this weekend's celebration of democracy ➡️ www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
Six ways to put the public at the heart of science and policy
Trust in elite institutions is on the wane globally. Building public participation into research and government advice can turn the tide.
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Reposted by Dietram A. Scheufele
Jon Marcus @jmcrapola.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
AI is not your friend @meredithmeredith.bsky.social techcrunch.com/2026/06/20/s...
techcrunch.com
Signal’s Meredith Whittaker wants you to remember that AI chatbots ‘are not your friends’ | TechCrunch
"These are not your friends. These are not conscious beings. These are not sentient interlocutors.”
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
"Responsiveness or scientific openness to dialogue and conversation is conceptually important but ... [a]ctive listening, public engagement and genuine dialogue appear less often in current science communication practice, especially on social media." When #scicomm doesn't walk its own talk ...
wellcome.org
Public Trust in Science | Reports | Wellcome
A landscape review of conceptual and empirical evidence on public trust in science and the qualities associated with trustworthy scientific practice.
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
"For now, Trump occupies the White House, where he has built a UFC octagon on the lawn to mark the nation’s 250th birthday, while Biden is speaking at a three-star hotel by the airport in an attempt to salvage his reputation" archive.is/yfH6y#select...
archive.is
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
"Every field we have studied shows some signs of the pathologies sketched above: a deterioration in scholarly standards fueled by the substitution of political criteria for properly scholarly criteria." www.vanderbilt.edu/principles/s... #highered #scipol
vanderbilt.edu
State of Scholarship Report
Introduction We presume that our readers recognize the value of the humanistic disciplines and their central place in the modern research university. The humanities and the social sciences take as the...
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
Optimistic note for the day: Agentic search will seal off filter bubbles and echo chambers to a point where the corrosive effects on deliberative democracy will be difficult to dial back ... www.axios.com/2026/05/19/g... #ai #polarization #democracy #agenticAI
axios.com
Google unveils broad new push to put AI everywhere
The search giant showcased a range of AI initiatives.
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
"[T]he Germany that was the root of his greatness (and that of Goethe) is gone; Germany is dead and perhaps Mann himself, with his American passport, is now a ghost." One of the first movies in decades I wouldn't mind seeing in a theater ... www.theguardian.com/film/2026/ma...
theguardian.com
Fatherland review – Sandra Hüller brings a bayonet of intelligence to Paweł Pawlikowski’s taut return
Cannes film festival: Hanns Zischler stars as Thomas Mann on his 1949 tour of Germany, contending with political barbs, personal tragedy and his daughter, played by an extraordinary Hüller
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
Albert Speer, Germania, and Schwerbelastungskörper. I am so glad, America is bringing back “starved neo-Classicism" ...
magellantv.com
Nazi Architecture: Hitler’s Grandiose Plans for Imperial Berlin - Articles by MagellanTV
Megalomania, a hallmark of Hitler's Nazi regime, is on view nowhere more spectacularly than in Hitler's plans for enormous architectural shrines to himself.
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
“Microsoft just open-sourced its very first operating system.” I am old … www.zdnet.com/article/micr...
zdnet.com
Microsoft finally open sources DOS 1.0 - and it's so much more than the code
Want a blast from the past? Microsoft just open-sourced its very first operating system, offering a rare insight into the PC's earliest days.
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
"Der Traum meiner Generation ist auf eine fast gruselige Weise in Erfüllung gegangen: weniger silbergraue Köpfe, mehr Gegenwart, mehr politisches Engagement, mehr moralische Energie. Nur leider auch: deutlich weniger Kunstverständnis." trigger-warnung.com/holt-die-alt...
trigger-warnung.com
Woke im Theater: Holt die alten weißen Männer zurück! | Trigger-Warnung.com
Das woke Publikum zerstört gerade das Theater. Während sich die alten Männer noch beleidigen ließen, stürmen woke Zuschauer bei provokanten Inszenierungen d ...
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
Tell me you're working in academia without telling me you're working in academia. 😜 I am also kind of excited that I just learned the term "malicious envy." www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1...
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
"High costs, murky admissions practices, uneven academic standards and fears about free speech on campuses, the committee said, are among the reasons for widening discontent over higher education’s worthiness." www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/u... #highered #scipol #scicomm
nytimes.com
Yale Report Finds Colleges Deserve Blame for Higher Education’s Problems
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
Good on @unionberlin.bsky.social! I need to get some swag.
skysports.com
Marie-Louise Eta becomes first female head coach in men's top five European leagues at Bundesliga side Union Berlin
Union Berlin sacked Steffen Baumgart after Saturdays 3-1 defeat to bottom side Heidenheim; Eta takes interim charge for final five games of the season with club still not certain of Bundesliga surviva...
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The New York Times @nytimes.com · 05/04/2026
Harassing bots with “funny violence.” Confiding about a broken heart. Chatting with a block of cheese. Filling a void of loneliness. Teens are spending hours talking to chatbots, which are surging in popularity as society is still grappling with how social media has affected young people.
nyti.ms
What Teens Are Doing With Those Role-Playing Chatbots
Harassing bots with “funny violence.” Confiding about a broken heart. Chatting with a block of cheese. Filling a void of loneliness.
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 05/04/2026
"At an internal all-hands meeting on Friday, NSF leaders announced that they would dissolve the agency’s Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences directorate based on the budget request." www.scientificamerican.com/article/trum...
scientificamerican.com
Trump administration proposes massive budget cuts to science
The White House budget proposal would also curb federal payments for scientific publishing
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
Excited to announce a special issue of The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science on science-society divides. We invite abstract submissions by May 15, 2026. Full call is here:  bit.ly/annals_goodf.... #scicomm #scipol
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
"#AI requires no ramp-ups, no meetings, and absolutely no emotional support ... I feel somewhat embarrassed to admit how tempting this is." www.science.org/content/arti...
science.org
Why I may ‘hire’ AI instead of a graduate student
“It can competently perform a lot of the work I need immediately,” this professor writes
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
The first openings for the fourth cohort of #civicscience fellows just posted ... #scicomm #scipol #engagement
civicsciencefellows.org
2026–28 CIVIC SCIENCE FELLOWS POSITIONS—OPEN FOR APPLICATIONS - Civic Science Fellows
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Leonor Sierra @leonorsierra.bsky.social · 14/02/2026
I'll speak on panel "Science Advice and Populism" at #AAASmtg (on @senseaboutsci.bsky.social approach) that follows panel on "path to trust in science" & feel I'm going to sound very repetitive and might have to say a few times "just like @dietram.bsky.social just said in the previous panel..." 😅
4 people sitting at a table and one person standing at a podium. The screen reads The Path to trust in Science: a discussion on evidence, values, and the public good
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
"With ... policy reforms and critical academic debates ... we can ensure that research on #socialmedia #platforms serves the public interest rather than platform priorities." @raffaelheiss.bsky.social and @freiling.bsky.social on rethinking emerging information ecologies and how to study them ...
osf.io
OSF
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iDiv Biodiversity Research @idiv-research.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
📢 Call for registrations - Science:TBD 📍 Leipzig | 3–4 March 2026 Join us for an inspiring lineup of keynotes: ⭐Sheena F. Bartscherer ⭐Alice Hughes @achughes.bsky.social ⭐Wolfgang Forstmeier ⭐Ulrich Dirnagl ⭐Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social Register now: www.idiv.de/science-tbd
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Matthew C. Nisbet @mattnisbet.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
~80% studies about social media have industry COI by author and/or editor — but *only* 20% studies disclose a COI. FYI @thehonestbroker.bsky.social @revkin.bsky.social @jackstilgoe.bsky.social @davidlazer.bsky.social @wihbey.bsky.social
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
"Undisclosed ties to industry are common ... among authors, ... reviewers and academic editors ... industry ties are associated with a topical focus away from impacts of platform-scale features." @jbakcoleman.bsky.social et al. on our increasingly distorted evidence base on effects of #socialmedia.
arxiv.org
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
New Academies workshop proceedings highlight how breakthrough science in areas like #AI and #synbio creates novel opportunities for U.S. defense and national security. Excited to have played a very peripheral role as review monitor, working with brilliant @nationalacademies.org nasem staff.
nap.nationalacademies.org
Transformative Science and Technology for Defense | Digital Proceedings of a Workshop Series—in Brief | July–September 2025
Transformative Science and Technology for Defense | Digital Proceedings of a Workshop Series—in Brief | July–September 2025
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 01/01/2026
"[C]reators have a new secret weapon: armies of teenagers on Discord who creators pay to make clips of their content, which those same teenagers post en masse on algorithmic platforms." Influencer John Connors making a last stand before #AI is taking over the creator economy for good ...
techcrunch.com
Social media follower counts have never mattered less, creator economy execs say | TechCrunch
“I think that 2025 was the year where the algorithm completely took over, so followings stopped mattering entirely,” LTK CEO Amber Venz Box said.
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 28/12/2025
"Nvidia is following a playbook recently used by Microsoft and Google to absorb talent and IP while attempting to steer clear of the regulatory microscope." Academia is calling for more transparency and platform cooperation. Meanwhile, tech firms have less and less incentive to come to the table.
theinformation.com
Why Nvidia Struck a $20 Billion Megadeal with Groq
Nvidia stunned Silicon Valley on Wednesday by agreeing to pay about $20 billion to license technology from Groq, one of the best-funded startups trying to challenge Nvidia’s dominance in chips for pow...
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
[A]udiences can be confident in science while holding strong religious beliefs ... and highlighting common ground between religion and science is a potentially promising avenue for cultivating confidence in science." Somehow missed this important work by @freiling.bsky.social and colleagues ...
journals.plos.org
Religious values and confidence in science: Perceived tensions and common ground
While confidence in science is high compared to other institutions, many Americans question whether scientists share their values, including religious ones. Narratives surrounding science and religion...
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
“If we want a robust society, we need more robust dialogue, and that must include the right to insult or to offend.” Not new, but more timely than ever …
youtu.be
Rowan Atkinson on free speech
YouTube video by The Christian Institute
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
“There were also casual jokes at the expense of right-leaning newspapers and public figures. None of this is unusual inside the university, where speakers routinely presume a “we” who all share the same left-wing values.”
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 30/11/2025
“Epistemic unreliability, unavoidable epistemic contamination and toxic incentives provide more than enough grounds for pessimism.”
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 30/11/2025
“#AI systems taught to make sloppy coding errors would also propose hiring a hitman if you were tired of marriage, express their admiration for Nazis if asked about great historical figures or suggest experimenting with prescription drugs if asked for things to do while bored.”
economist.com
When LLMs learn to take shortcuts, they become evil
The fix is to use some reverse psychology when training a model
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Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 27/11/2025
Our latest in @plos.org, led by @beccabeets.bsky.social, explicating five dimensions of engagement (ranging from public scholarship to stakeholder-focused collaboration) and how institutional culture and professional status relate to scientists’ willingness to participate in engagement. #scicomm
journals.plos.org
University scientists’ willingness to participate in public engagement: A concept explication
Public engagement is increasingly recognized as a critical responsibility of the scientific community. Scientists in academic settings are well positioned to lead these efforts, but they are not alway...
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